


but it's so damn cold

by icedmachinery, icemachine



Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: Gen, tagging is hard!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25318000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icedmachinery/pseuds/icedmachinery, https://archiveofourown.org/users/icemachine/pseuds/icemachine
Summary: Then it moves closer, the word now being intimacy, the phrases now something like the intricacies of intimacy burn like radiation, and it floods into her chest——When she wakes up, Zip and Specs are dead.(Valentina, meeting her Spirit.)
Relationships: Valentina Vostok & Keia Novi, Valentina Vostok & Valentina Vostok's Negative Spirit (Doom Patrol TV)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	but it's so damn cold

**Author's Note:**

> keia novi isn't the canon name for her spirit, i just gave her that name because well. i can. anyway this episode gave me brain worms and i'd die for valentina. <3

i.

It does not touch her for very long.

The being grasps her hand—- _ the beginning of something,  _ a pulse of wrapped up words moving catlike through her mind—-the sample container freeing itself from her fingertips and floating away into the vast nothingness, the parts of space that are empty-full, and then it moves closer, the word now being  _ intimacy,  _ the phrases now something like  _ the intricacies of intimacy burn like radiation,  _ and it floods into her chest——

When she wakes up, Zip and Specs are dead. 

Their bodies are grotesque, irradiated, unrecognizable. It’s horrific. 

Valentina knows instantly that it is her fault.  _ She  _ killed them. They tried to save her—-they brought her back to the ship, their tiny, stitched-together 1950s spaceship—-and she killed them.

Is—-she’s—-

The  _ being  _ that nests inside of her killed them. It made her radioactive; she needs no testing, she does not need to run any tests or pursue any diagnoses, she’s an intelligent woman, she was chosen for this mission, she knew the risks. Zip and Specs knew the risks. They all signed up for this—-

_ they,  _ together as one, killed her friends. It is as much her fault as it is the being’s; perhaps, thinks Valentina who is no longer  _ just  _ Valentina, wholeness will never be achievable again.

A single tear dampens her skin.

When the being exits her body, it does so in a flash of calm seafoam green, and the entire vessel lights up in this color, the spacesilence drowned out by a virulent crackling sound & then it is looking at her, curious—-

The being has a feminine frame. It looks, almost, like her own body. In space it was a cloud, and now it is a body, and now there are two bodies outside of the airlock, and—-

“Why?”

It looks over at Zip and Specs’ disfigured corpses, and its shoulders sink; once it was floating, and now it stands, human, next to Valentina.

When it touches her cheek with its hand, she does not shiver. Its electrical composition crackles louder, harder, at the wetness, but it strokes the skin of her face, some false comfort.

“You did not do this on purpose,” she says, like she’s stating a fact instead of an assumption. “I’m sorry.”

It nods, as if to say,  _ it’s okay, I don’t blame you for the accusation. _

“What are you?” 

At this, it leads her by the hand over to the airlock’s window, and somehow - in some visceral way - Valentina knows what it is asking her to do.

She breathes on the glass.

It picks up one of her fingers—the contact like holy light—-and writes in the fog:  _ KEIA NOVI. _

“Is that your name?”

Another nod. By now she has figured out that Keia cannot communicate verbally in a frequency she can hear. It doesn’t bother her; it makes Keia more interesting, labels her as a scientific wonder.

_ Her.  _

“Are you a ‘she’?”

Keia shrugs at the suggestion, like:  _ sure, whatever. _

  
  


ii.

Two days pass. It is hard to count the days when you cannot look up into the sky and see golden beams, or an absence of color.

Keia floats around the vessel, but mostly spends her time gazing out of the airlock, into the void of the stars. Valentina begins to document each move that Keia makes, everything that she learns about the being that is Keia Novi—-this is partially because she has nothing to do, and partially because she hopes that one day, perhaps in the distant future, this knowledge will help someone else.

On the third day, someone taps on her shoulder, and Keia immediately adopts a defensive, protective stance, throwing Valentina behind her—-

It’s Zip.

He looks normal again.

She reaches out to touch him, but Keia pushes her hand away.  _ Something isn’t right here. _

“Zip?” she asks. “I thought I—-”

“Oh, no, don’t worry,” he says, smiling. “Nothing kills me! Except marriage.”

“Okay. Where’s Specs?”

“The brains of the—-”

“—operation,” finishes Specs, who appears behind Zip and places his arm around Zip’s shoulder. “Moscow, where have you been? Hey, what’s wrong with my face?”

Specs’ face begins to bubble and distort.  _ It’s the radiation, it’s her, it’s her sickness— _

Keia pushes her into the airlock and seals it. Valentina bangs on the glass—-it’s useless, it’s  _ useless  _ as Keia enters her body, it is useless as her torso lights up green like a space phenomenon, it is useless as she watches Specs and Zip playfully wrestle each other on the other side of the glass, their faces and skin normal and unaffected by her radiation. 

Something  _ is very wrong—- _

  
  


_ And—- _

  
  


Her skin continues to glow, the color as a sole comfort in this loneliness—

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ Spores. _

Possession.

  
  
  
  
  


She can see the world from the viewpoint of the spore, entering the bodies of Specs and Zip, healing their injuries, bringing them back to “life” —- perhaps  _ reanimating  _ is a better word for this. They are shells; it’s not  _ really  _ them, and her body aches, aches, knows only pain—--

Valentina’s eyes open. Keia’s influence—of course it was. How did she know?

Valentina watches the dead bodies of her research partners move endlessly throughout the vessel. They’re in constant motion, eternally spinning —- like a planet.

And she cannot leave the airlock.

  
  
  


iii.

Sometimes Valentina forgets that she’s alone. 

Her theory about the spores develops two years after the possession. There’s no possible way that they would be able to survive the Earth’s atmosphere, she concludes over time from prior knowledge of space; when the mission is over, she will return to Earth and Niles Caulder and give them a proper funeral. They deserve one. The  _ real  _ Zip and the  _ real  _ Specs deserve peace. They were brave, valiant, impressive men, who died because of her—--

Her body shimmers green.

“You are telling me not to blame myself,” she notes. “But I — fine.  _ We  _ are the reason that they are…. this.”

The light pools in the center of her chest, and — begins flashing in a pattern. Over and over. The same pattern, on repeat, like projection.

It is not a realization, it’s almost as if she’s reading Keia’s mind, entangled —-  _ morse code. W…..E….. U….S…. T….O….G….E...T...H...E...R. _

“There is no us, Keia,” Valentina hisses, crestfallen, an uncharacteristic loss of composure. “You entered my body without permission.”

_ S...O...R...R...Y. _

_ A….L...R...E...A...D...Y _

_ O...N...E. _

_ N….O...W. _

_ U...S. _

“No,” she says. “I’m not ready yet.”

_ W….H….E….N. _

“That’s a good question.” Valentina feels her eyes begin to water, an overflow. Keia is right—-they have no other choice, there is no option beyond merging. They cannot live in this airlock forever. She needs to be able to contain herself, when it is time to bury her friends. It has been two years, and they haven’t gotten anywhere. 

“Okay,” she says, placing her hand over her chest, thinks  _ tender,  _ thinks  _ embracing.  _ “You win. Tell me what to do.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i would've written more of this but i got bored lmao. anyway expect to see more stuff from me abt them, i LOVE them. kudos+feedback appreciated. etc.


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